rude's post showing the true statistical top 10 really proves my point much better than my original post does.
"Babalu won the biggest MMA tourney in years"...I think you're forgetting the Pride MW Grand Prix. But, I see your point.
"Arona is too high on most lists."
This reminds me of a funny story one of my buddies told me back in high school. One day he walked into his class late, he looked around and all of the students were NOT students from his class. Even the teacher was the wrong teacher. For a second he thought "I think you guys all have the wrong classroom" before he realized what had really happened.
Mino is corect, Extreme said it best "statisticlly peaking" Vitor has to be #2. 1.Silva 2.Belfort 3.Coture 4.Ortiz 5.Jackson 6.Lidell 7.Arona 8.Babulo 9.lil mino 10.Horn
how would you guys 'statistically' rank the fighters inside a cage or in a ring???
do you think it would make that big of a difference? i do.
(Silva said he would want to fight Couture in a ring and said he would KO him if they did)
"In a ring, I think Silva would KO Couture. "
And in a cage, I think Couture would pound the shit out of Silva. What's your point?
1. Couture
2. Silva or Belfort
3. Silva or Belfort
4. Ortiz
5. Rampage
thats my top 5. i think there should be a couture v. Belfort rematch with Silva getting the winner
Silva is blatantly #1, as he should have been all along.
Extreme,
Holding a belt is very subjective, and doesn't really mean much if there isn't a legitimate system in place to award title shots.
It basically relies on the decisions of a couple of people, and a lot of times it has more to do with profitability than credibility.
So what if Tito had the belt for X number of fights?
He was fighting Tanner, Sinosic and Shamrock while Liddell was fighting Sobral, Belfort, and Bustamante.
Pride decided that Silva vs. Sak would be the inaugural title fight. It didn't really have much to do with merit. Mostly it was fan interest that fueled the one-sided matchup.
That match was followed by more Silva vs. Japanese guys, some good some not so good.
He's fought Sak THREE times for crying out loud. OK we get it already, Wanderlei's better than Sak. Can someone else have a chance??
All the while more deserving fighters like Arona are kept out of the title opportunities.
My point is, who cares who has the belt, if they aren't fighting the top challengers?
TheExtreme Arona is the RINGS MW Champ
They need to have these fights held on the elevated BLOODSPORT MAT! no ring or cage to contain the fighters, just CHUN LEE!